Page 86 of Cowboy Bear's Hope

Dante brought out the best in me. He knew me in a way no one else ever had. Or ever could.

Every secret, every fear, every broken piece of me, he didn’t just accept them. He loved me for them.

And that love? It was like nothing else.

I got it now. Finally, I understood what it meant to be fated mates.

This wasn’t just love. This was destiny.

He loved me with a fierceness that was both exhilarating and terrifying in its intensity. And I loved him, too. So deeply, so completely, that I couldn’t imagine a world where he wasn’t by my side.

We were better together than we could ever be apart.

And right now, in this moment, I knew one thing with absolute certainty.

I never wanted to be apart from him again. Never wanted him to doubt that.

My lips brushed against his ear as I whispered the words that had been building in my heart all along.

“I pick you, Dante. I will always pick you. Mate.”

Chapter Twenty-Six-Dante

A few days later.

Because of the inclement weather, the rodeo was canceled this month, but that was to be expected.

January and February were the worst of winter in this part of New Jersey, but today was still special. We were celebrating Rosie Posie’s seventh birthday with an indoor petting zoo party for Rosie and some of her friends from her old school.

After a long, heartfelt conversation with Avery. And a pretty intense one with Sybil Harbor-Calloway. We’d decided homeschooling was the best option for now.

It wasn’t a permanent solution, but it felt like the right move after everything that had happened.

Besides, it worked out perfectly. Avery had quit her job after filing a formal complaint against that absolute asshat, Dryden.

Fucker is still breathing by a miracle.

My Bear scratched beneath my skin, restless and still pissed we hadn’t taken a more direct approach.

Like, say, squashing the bastard into the ground.

The thought was tempting, but Dryden was human, and no matter how satisfying it might’ve been, we didn’t need that kind of trouble in our lives.

Letting it go was hard, though. My Bear didn’t like loose ends.

Sybil, though, had turned out to be the kind of surprise we hadn’t seen coming.

When she first showed up at the school, we’d both thought she was with Child Services, here to rip Rosie away from us.

It had sent me into full-on fight mode, every instinct roaring to protect my family.

But Sybil wasn’t what we’d expected.

She wasn’t from Child Services at all. She worked for a special branch of the government called the Division of Paranormal Creatures & Activity, or the DPCA, for short.

More specifically, she was part of their Supernatural Child Protection Services department. And when she sat us down and explained her role, her purpose, it was a revelation for sure.

She wasn’t here to take Rosie away. Far from it.

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